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As a father and a school superintendent, I have an extremely personal interest in the state of our schools. I also have a great respect for the democratic process: the opportunity for vigorous debate and the potential created by new and innovative ideas.

October 21, 2014|
By Will Schofield
Guest columnist
|Community columnists

If I die anytime soon - and I have no plans to do so at the moment - please see that the first paragraph of my obituary reads, "He was past president of the University of Georgia National Alumni Association." You can save for later paragraphs the part about my being often mistaken for Brad Pitt and my uncanny ability to put commas where they don't belong.

I just hung up on another perfectly nice volunteer asking me to send money to a political cause I wholly support. I also dumped a half dozen unopened letters from worthwhile organizations into the recycle bin. I've contributed to some of these groups for over 40 years.

Last Saturday while the Bulldog nation sweated out a 35-32 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers that should not have been as hard as our scholar-athletes made it, former head football coach and athletic director Vince Dooley's first team at UGA was recognized on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

If you had told me a year ago that Gov. Nathan Deal would essentially be tied at this point in his re-election campaign with an inexperienced Democratic legislator, I would have asked if you were smoking some of that stuff that is now legally on sale in Colorado.

Anyone with a sense of history who has watched the fascinating new Ken Burns documentary on PBS, "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," may have experienced a sense of déjà vu during episode six, which chronicles the tumultuous events of 1939-44.

I have one of the most interesting jobs in the world. One day I am advising world leaders on the nuances of international monetary policy. The next day I am consoling a distraught reader who thinks I need to "look within myself spiritually."

I don't pay a lot of attention to football. Even though I was a proud Red Elephant during the heyday of Bobby Gruhn and Tommy West, I just never caught the fever. Four years at the University of Alabama during the reign of Bear Bryant did nothing to pique my interest. Since I married a man whose football apathy mirrored my own, there was never an incentive to learn or follow the game.